Milkshakes
by HelenaGrace22
Summary: Piper orders a milkshake and her whole night takes an unexpected turn
1. Chapter 1

Piper just couldn't take it anymore. She'd spent every night this week waiting for her dad to come home. It was midnight on Friday and she couldn't find any sign of her dad's return. No phone call, no headlights dancing on her wall and no sound of his Maserati pulling in the driveway. Piper's dad was a movie star, so him coming home late was normal but he had told her he'd be back on Sunday. That was six days ago. Piper was worried and sick of being home alone so she went up to her room. She grabbed her faded dark red hoodie and slipped it on over her orange Camp Half-Blood T-shirt. On her way out the front door she put on her leather combat boots that her father gave her from the set of his last movie.

Piper walked around her town until she came across a diner. The open sign shining bright into the night. She opened the door and was greeted by the sound of jingling bells which pierced through the silence. A lady who like she was in her early forties walked up from behind the counter.

"I'll have a chocolate milkshake," Piper said in a low tone.

"Okay dear. Just give me a moment," the lady replied. Piper found an empty booth which was not hard considering the fact that it was past midnight and she was the only one there. As she waited for her milkshake, Piper looked around the diner. The checked tiled floors were sticky and old fashioned pictures decorated the walls. The light above her flickered every so often. Piper wondered why she had never seen this place before.

"Here you go sweetie," smiled the lady, putting the milkshake on the table.

"Thanks," mumbled Piper. Once the lady had walked away, she began drinking the milkshake. It had an interesting taste but Piper didn't care. When the lady returned with another milkshake Piper drank it eagerly. Soon there were two empty glass cups on the table. Piper rested her head on her arms. Her thoughts were starting to run together, something about her father, milkshakes and loneliness. Piper drifted into the comfort of sleep.

Piper felt someone grab her arm and lead her out of the diner. Her mind was too foggy to do anything but follow. It had started to rain and Piper could smell the wet pavement. She tried to open her mouth to say something but it was too hard. It was too dark to look at her captor or her surroundings.

After walking for a long time, she heard the click of a door closing behind her. She tried to walk up the stairs in front of her but her legs wouldn't cooperate. She fell. Her captor slapped her. Piper could tell by the rough hand that her captor was a man. She tried to get up but she fell again. This earned her another slap. Hot tears sprung to her eyes. The man grabbed her arm and dragged her up the stairs. Piper bit her lip to hold back her cries of pain. They had reached the top of the staircase but her captor continued to drag her.

"Where are you taking me?" Piper was finally able to ask.

"That's for me to know and you to find out," said the man gruffly. Piper felt a sharp pain in her skull and her world went black.


	2. Chapter 2

Hey guys, thanks for the reviews! I hope you like this chapter. Enjoy :)

Piper opened her eyes. She was in a small, empty room except for the poky mattress she was lying on. She rushed to stand up but was held back by something. She heard the clanking of metal and looked down. Her wrists and ankles were locked on cold, heavy, metal chains. Piper fought back the urge to scream when the events of the last few hours flooded into her mind.

"How could I have been so stupid?" she asked herself. "I should have known something was wrong the second I saw that diner." Piper knew why she had never seen the diner before. It was never there. The building had been abandoned for years and she had always avoided it. That explained the sticky floor, old pictures and flickering lights. Piper couldn't believe she had let herself walk straight into a trap. She was wrenched out of her thoughts when the door to the small room opened and a muscular man walked in smirking.

"We've finally got one," he said to another man. Piper looked at him more closely and realized that he was not a man at all. He had green, scaly skin. She took a sharp intake of breath when she realized that he was a monster. How had they found her? What did he mean when he said that they finally found one? Piper's mind raced.

When the man and monster left the room Piper searched for a way out. The room had no window, but the door didn't appear to have a lock. All she had to do was get out of these chains. Piper examined them more closely. There was a keyhole. Maybe she could open it with her dagger… She tried to reach into the pocket of her ripped jeans but the chains were too heavy for her to move her arms. She kept trying until her wrists stung from rubbing against the metal and her shoulders were cramped.

Piper sat on the moldy mattress all night. She didn't dare to sleep. When the man returned to the lonely room in the morning, her wrists and ankles hurt so bad that it was all she could to keep from wincing every time they pressed against the cold metal. The man walked toward her and seized her hands. Piper cried out. He unlocked the chains and Piper saw that her wrists were raw and bloody. Since her hands were now free, she landed a solid blow on the man's face. He stumbled backwards. Piper tried to stand up but her feet were still chained. The man came at her but she was prepared. Piper had her dagger in her hand. She dug it deep into the man's leg and shoved him. He yelled in pain and fell to the hard floor clutching his leg. Piper snatched the keys and unlocked the chains around her ankles. Once she was free she ran out of the room in which she had spent many long hours.

Piper raced down the long white hall. As she ran she noticed that the stale air smelled a bit like a hospital and a science lab. "This can't be good," she thought to herself. Piper pushed herself to run faster. She turned a sharp corner and ran into something warm. Breathing heavily, she looked up and found herself staring into the eyes of the green monster. Piper turned to run in the opposite direction but screamed as the monster grabbed her wrist. He harshly turned her to face him. Piper glanced down and saw her blood seeping between his fingers.

"Thought you could run away little girl," he hissed. Piper didn't say anything she just glared at him. "Never could trust mortals anyway. They're weak and distracted rather easily," the monster continued while shaking his head disapprovingly. Piper knew that he was referring to the man she had left lying on the floor in the white room. "Well, now that I've got you, why don't we get started? We have great plans for you," he cackled. Piper kicked him, hard. He hissed. She started to run but he jumped on her. Piper heard a crack and a hot searing pain raced up her leg. She knew her ankle was broken. Now she had no hope of escaping the monster. He grinned and dragged her down the hall. Piper grit her teeth as more hot tears ran down her cheeks.

The monster dragged her into a room full of people dressed in white lab coats. As Piper's vision faded in and out, she managed to see a metal table and a lot of cords and equipment running to it.

"We've been waiting a long time for this," said a man with hair as dark as night. Then her vision went black.


	3. Chapter 3

Piper was on the Argo II with Leo and Jason, her best friends. They were laughing and looking at the stars. But all of a sudden, both boys were on the ground shaking uncontrollably, clutching their throats with horrified looks on their faces. Piper screamed and tried to help them but everything she did only made it worse. She was terrified. Then the boys went still. Piper knew they were dead. She bent over Jason, tears streaming down her face and lightly kissed his forehead. Then she backed away and looked her the closest friends she'd ever had. All of the good memories came to her like a kaleidoscope in her mind. Piper breathed heavy, shaky breathes. She felt like a huge part of her heart had been ripped out of her chest. Then she crumpled on the deck of the ship, sobbing.

Piper woke up screaming. She looked around frantically and saw the people dressed in white coats looking at a screen. They appeared to be very intrigued by what they saw. When they turned to look at her, one of them shot something cold into her neck.

Now Piper was on the ocean, surfing with her dad. She had just made it over her biggest wave yet. When she paddled over to her dad with a huge smile on her face, she saw that he was frowning.

"Dad, what is it?" she asked worriedly.

"I love you Pipes," he said.

"I love you too," she replied.

"I have something to tell you," he started. When Piper raised her eyebrows, he continued, "I am sending you to a boarding school in Asia."

"Why?" she asked sharply.

"I just... I need some time on my own. The two of us together has been great but it's not working out for my career. I still have to take care of you and it's holding me back," he answered, in a serious voice.

"Dad..." Piper's voice broke. "I need you. I can take care of myself. Please don't send me away from you. I love you," she said through her tears.

"No, "said Tristian firmly, "You leave in the morning." And with that he paddled away from his daughter and back to shore.

Piper woke up sobbing and heartbroken. The man with dark hair grabbed her arm and guided her back to the small room. She stumbled the down the hallway, clutching his arm for support. When they got to the room, he locked Piper back in the chains but she barely noticed. She couldn't believe what had just happened. Everyone she loved had been taken away from her. Piper knew it couldn't have been real but her deep down in her heart she wondered, if maybe it was.


	4. Chapter 4

When Piper had run out of tears, she leaned against the wall and stared at the puddle of blood on the floor from the man who had first captured her. Her ankle hurt more than ever now. Piper wondered if she would ever escape this horrid place of torture.

The next morning, a man wearing a white coat walked into the room. Piper followed his movements with her emerald green eyes. He strode to the faded wooden floorboards in front of her. "We've made so much progress because of you," he said with an evil smirk, "I can't wait to see what other surprises you'll have for us." Piper tried to decipher what he meant but her mind was too foggy with sleepiness and hunger. The man released her from the heavy chains and led her back to the room where she had been tortured the day before. Piper tried with all her might to stop the man from taking her there but she was so weak that the man just laughed.

Piper lay on the cold metal table and fell into another hallucination. This time she was standing on the hill over Camp Half-Blood. The camp was in flames. Piper tried to run to help but her feet were stuck in the hill. She couldn't move, she could only stand there and watch her second-home, the only place where she felt accepted and loved, burn to the ground. The heat from the red hot flames burned against her skin.

When the hallucination ended, Piper was full of too much grief and was in too much pain to do anything. "Just take her back to the room. I have a feeling she won't be going anywhere," a voice echoed through Piper's mind. Someone had slung her over their shoulder. Her head thumping against their back with every step they took. Then Piper felt the rough feeling of a rope against her wrists. Silence followed and she knew she was alone.

When Piper could move again, she looked down at her wrists and noticed that the rope was loose. "Whoever tied this would not make a good pirate. Can't tie a knot to save their life," she thought. After she had freed her hands, she stood up and walked toward the door, cringing with every step. The hall was dark and silent. She stepped into the overwhelming darkness and found a wall. She traced it with her fingertips until she found another door. She opened it and closed it behind her. The red light of an EXIT sign revealed a metal stairwell. Probably the same one she was dragged up on her first night here, she thought. Piper started down the stairs but her ankle gave out on her. She fell to the grates with a crash. Piper bit her lip and prayed that no one would come running. She heard a door close at the bottom of the stairwell. A tear escaped from her eye as she heard footsteps come up the stairs. The footsteps paused, "Piper?" a familiar voice called. Piper moved her head toward the sound. The footsteps came faster until they reached her. "Piper," the broken voice repeated, caressing her face.

"Jason," she replied, tears flooding down her cheeks. She grabbed his hand and looked at him with fear in her eyes. "My ankle, it's broken." Jason nodded and picked her up. Her head resting against is chest. He carried her down the stairwell. Piper felt safe again, in the arms of the only one who could make her feel so loved. She was hoping that no one would come and find them. She couldn't last much longer and it would kill her to see Jason have to go through what she had been through.


	5. Chapter 5

Jason carried her out into the cool night. Piper sighed of relief when they turned the corner back to her house. The porch light was on. She searched the windows for any sign of her dad, but found nothing. Biting her lip to hold back the tears, she nestled her head into Jason's shoulder. When they got to the house, Piper was surprised that the door was unlocked. She was almost certain she'd locked it before leaving that night that seemed like forever ago. Piper felt her eyes close and she drifted off to sleep.

When Piper opened finally awoke, she was surprised to feel light shining through a window. There was no window in the white room. And blankets; her bed was supposed to be moldy and prickly. Sure she was dreaming, Piper opened her eyes slowly. She inhaled sharply when she saw Jason sitting on the edge of her bed. Her bed! He was looking at the floor. His expression looked sad. To make sure this wasn't a dream, Piper painfully inched her hand toward his until her fingers brushed against the back of his hand. He turned to look at her. "You're up," he said softly.

"Jason, you need to get away from me. Please! I don't want them to do to you what they did to me. Please," Piper broke down sobbing. Jason scooped her up into a tight embrace.

"Piper listen to me, those people aren't taking me and they're not going to take you again. I won't let that happen," he told her. "I promise," Jason whispered into her hair. Piper looked at him, her beautiful eyes full of fear. Jason gently brushed a strand of hair off of her face. "I love you."

"I love you too," Piper whispered. She looked over her shoulder and cried a cry of joy. Her dad was standing in the doorway.


	6. Chapter 6

"Piper!" her dad rushed over and scooped her into a tight embrace.

"Dad," she whispered into shoulder, tears streaming down her face. Piper couldn't remember the last time she'd cried this much.

"There's a lot of explaining I need to do," her dad said matter-of-factly. Piper looked into his eyes expectantly. Jason slid his hand into hers. "The reason I didn't come home for so long was because I knew that there were these monsters in the area who were taking half-bloods and testing on them. I was trying to help find them and stop them," Mr. Mclean explained.

"Why would they want to run tests on half-bloods?" Jason asked hesitantly.

"Because once they figured out how your guys brains work, they could control you and turn you into weapons against the gods," the older man answered.

"Why not use mortals?" Piper muttered.

"Half-bloods are stronger and more powerful than mortals," her father answered her. Piper nodded in understanding. "We stopped them so there's no need to worry."

"Good. I don't want them to hurt anyone else," Jason said, pulling Piper closer to him.

"Piper, I'm sorry," Mr. Mclean's voice broke. "I should have come back as soon as I heard about this to be with you. I'm terribly sorry." He started sobbing

"Dad, it was horrible every second of it, but I'm okay now. It's okay." Piper said through her own tears. Her dad reached out and hugged her. She felt safe and knew for sure that everything was going to be fine.


End file.
